Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
Forum rules
You dont have to use ModX or make your mod AutoMod compatible. A simple textfile is fine
But if you post Mods here You also have to give support
You dont have to use ModX or make your mod AutoMod compatible. A simple textfile is fine
But if you post Mods here You also have to give support
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
Given the quality of Arty's Styles, it's a shame that at least one of them isn't adopted as an official alternative to prosilver. It seems like the phpBB styles development team are very cautious about using any kind of modern web design (CSS3, sprites, icon font replacement), in order not to cause problems for users of IE7 or IE8.
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
I am going to a post somewhere, here or on phpbb.com on doing a javascript audit.
The idea is to build a list of all the .js files, those included with phpBB (don't know what all of them do), and those included with mods. Do a page by page analysis, Board Index, Viewforum, Viewtopic, etc, with 'inspect element' to see which is used on which page, and whether it is actually necessary for that page. Then to combine site wide js into one file and minify it, and where easy to do, combine page specific js and combine it and compress it, and use the appropriate IF statements to ensure js is only used on the pages that need it.
I will leave all the original js files where they are, and put all the combined and minimised js files in a folder at the root of the forum, maybe in 'scripts'. The exception may be mod specific js that already has conditional statements activated by ACP switching.
The idea is to build a list of all the .js files, those included with phpBB (don't know what all of them do), and those included with mods. Do a page by page analysis, Board Index, Viewforum, Viewtopic, etc, with 'inspect element' to see which is used on which page, and whether it is actually necessary for that page. Then to combine site wide js into one file and minify it, and where easy to do, combine page specific js and combine it and compress it, and use the appropriate IF statements to ensure js is only used on the pages that need it.
I will leave all the original js files where they are, and put all the combined and minimised js files in a folder at the root of the forum, maybe in 'scripts'. The exception may be mod specific js that already has conditional statements activated by ACP switching.
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
I've got my (heavily modded forum) up to two C's with some compression and minimisation of JS, and put as much js in the footer as I can. Still a bit left to do.
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
You can get rid of styleswitcher.js and remove font size changer code from header bar (overall_header), as it is easier to change font size in browser nowadays. I have combined and minimised jquery.cookie.js and forum_fn.js. I have added height and width attributes to forum icons (customised to display them according to Stokers instructions) in searches, but am struggling to get them into index.
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
Forget getting rid of font size changer. I had my browser set to display font size 12 min, so didn't see the changes. I can see how having it would be useful, you can of course, minimise and combine jquery.cookie.js, forum_fn.js and styleswitcher.js, which might get a .5% improvement in Y slow grade.
Speed Comparison - optimising your forum for speed
I decided to ditch font size changer after all, as it doesn't remember user choice for future visits.
I have got my forum up to two C's:
There is still room for improvement because the external js for sidebar RSS feed is slow, extra js, and creating some 404 requests for missing images. I plan to use Simple Pie to do all this in PHP.
Extra speed gain not shown in the above, as a result of updating php to PHP 5.3 (Single php.ini), turning zlib on and turning gzip compression on, tweaking other php.ini settings, and editing expires headers in .htaccess.
From http://www.whatsmyip.org/http-compression-test/
Gzip only compresses html (I think), not css and js, so best to have these minified or compressed the best you can. I didn't have gzip on before because it seemed to muck up part of the forum, but getting this setup right has created the single biggest improvement in speed.
I have got my forum up to two C's:
There is still room for improvement because the external js for sidebar RSS feed is slow, extra js, and creating some 404 requests for missing images. I plan to use Simple Pie to do all this in PHP.
Extra speed gain not shown in the above, as a result of updating php to PHP 5.3 (Single php.ini), turning zlib on and turning gzip compression on, tweaking other php.ini settings, and editing expires headers in .htaccess.
From http://www.whatsmyip.org/http-compression-test/
Gzip only compresses html (I think), not css and js, so best to have these minified or compressed the best you can. I didn't have gzip on before because it seemed to muck up part of the forum, but getting this setup right has created the single biggest improvement in speed.
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